David B. Birney

David Bell Birney (29 May 1825-18 October 1864) was a Major-General of the US Army who commanded the X Corps of the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War.

Biography
David Birney was born in Huntsville, Alabama on 29 May 1825, the son of the abolitionist politician James G. Birney. Birney's father later moved the family to Kentucky in 1833, freeing his slaves, and the family moved to Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania due to receiving death threats. Birney attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and became a lawyer, and he was made a Lieutenant-Colonel of the US Army when the American Civil War broke out in 1861. Birney served under Philip Kearny during the war, and he took over Kearny's division after he was killed at Chantilly. Birney was known to have issues with following orders, but his bravery at Chancellorsville led to him being promoted to Major-General. Birney's division of Daniel Sickles' Army of the Potomac III Corps was demolished at the Peach Orchard during the Battle of Gettysburg, with John Bell Hood and Lafayette McLaws' divisions destroying the foolish Sickles' corps. Birney would remain a division commander during the 1864 Overland Campaign, serving in the II Corps and being wounded by a shell fragment at Spotsylvania Court House. During the Petersburg campaign, he fell ill with malaria, and he died from malaria in Philadelphia on 18 October 1864 at the age of 39.